HHS advisory panel recommends delaying Stage 2 Meaningful Use until 2014

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Steve Fox and Vadim Schick

The HIT Policy Committee, which advises the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in the Department of Health and Human Services, voted 12-5 to approve a significant delay in requiring providers to meet Stage 2 Meaningful Use until 2014.  If finalized by CMS, such delay would be a welcome relief to those providers who qualified for Stage 1 Meaningful Use in 2011 (and therefore would have only a few months to commence Stage 2 Meaningful Use under the current rule).

Via Government Health IT:

The delay is among the stage 2 recommendations that the Health IT Policy Committee approved at its meeting June 8 by an overwhelming vote of 12 to 5.

The original 2013 timeframe does not give vendors enough time to design, develop, and test new functionality and providers to deploy it and report measures for one year, said Dr. Paul Tang, vice chair of the Health IT Policy Committee and chair of its meaningful use work group.

“The only group that would be affected is the early entrants who qualify for stage 1 in 2011 who get put into a bit of predicament in an unintended way,” he said. Tang is also chief medical information officer at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

As a result, stage 1 demonstration and attestation would continue through 2013; stage 2 would start in 2014 and stage 3 in 2015. With the revised timing, providers will still receive the same payments as originally planned. Instead of 2013, however, early entrants will have to wait to attest and receive payments for stage 2 in 2014.

You can find and download the Meaningful Use workgroup's recommendations by clicking here.

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HHS issues proposed rule on accounting of PHI disclosures

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Steve Fox and Vadim Schick

On May 31, 2011, HHS released the proposed rule on accounting for dislosures of protected health information (PHI), which modified the HIPAA Privacy Rule pursuant to the HITECH Act. This proposed rule would give individuals the right to get a report on who has electronically accessed their PHI. Via HHS press release:

'This proposed rule represents an important step in our continued efforts to promote accountability across the health care system, ensuring that providers properly safeguard private health information,' said OCR Director Georgina Verdugo. 'We need to protect peoples’ rights so that they know how their health information has been used or disclosed.'

People would obtain this information by requesting an access report, which would document the particular persons who electronically accessed and viewed their protected health information. Although covered entities are currently required by the HIPAA Security Rule to track access to electronic protected health information, they are not required to share this information with people.

The proposed rule requires an accounting of more detailed information for certain disclosures that are most likely to affect a person’s rights or interests. The proposed changes to the accounting requirements provide information of value to individuals while placing a reasonable burden on covered entities and business associates.

You can view and download the proposed rule by clicking here.

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